IQOO 9T is a killer phone that you probably can’t buy

Last month, we reviewed OnePlus 10T and found it to be a solid Android smartphone with a reasonable price of $649. The iQOO 9T was recently released to smartphone customers in India for ₹49,999.00 (approximately USD$625), which equates to the price of 10T. Although I have a limited connection and can’t fully test its mobile performance, I was able to spend a few weeks with the black Alpha model. iQOO also offers a Legend color with BMW Motorsport stripes on the back.

The IQOO 9T is one of the few phones with the new 1st generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus processor, super-fast LPDDR5 RAM, and 120W FlashCharge.

These are mostly top-of-the-line specs at a price that’s hundreds less than most flagship phones. It’s a big phone, but feels great in the hand with the metal frame and frosted glass back.

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I’m using a 12/256GB phone model with my T-Mobile SIM card. LTE is well supported by T-Mobile on 5 bands with the n41 band providing 5G connectivity. It works well enough for me to make communications and is also perfectly fine on Wi-Fi.

Hardware

Looking at the specs, the iQOO 9T has almost all the top specs and is a lovely device. The RAM is even upgraded to LPDDR5 with enhanced UFS 3.1 on the internal storage, so the phone is a great device and it never lags or is held back by anything I throw at it.

The monitor supports refresh rates up to 120Hz with a smart switch option that automatically adjusts the refresh rate based on application usage and system power consumption. It has a peak brightness of 1,500 nits with HDR 10 Plus certification and looks great. The front-facing camera is centered according to the punch-hole design at the top of the screen.

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The iQOO 9T’s hardware is superb, with a solid feel and elegant design. The phone is a bit wide and large, but that also means multimedia content plays well on the phone’s gorgeous AMOLED display. It certainly helps that the stereo speakers also sound great.

When it comes to media and entertainment, gamers will appreciate the V1 Plus chip that boosts frame rates and optimizes colors. The latest generation of in-display fingerprint sensor is here and in my testing it worked flawlessly. I used it in conjunction with the face unlock feature with a quick and consistent response.

The phone has a microphone and IR port at the top, and a speaker, USB-C, microphone, and SIM card tray at the bottom. The power and volume buttons are on the right edge.

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On the back of the iQOO 9T we find three camera lenses and a flashlight. The top left camera is the main 50MP GN5 camera with dual pixel technology and OIS. The 13MP ultra-wide camera is placed below it while the 12MP portrait camera sits to the right of the 13MP camera lens.

The rear glass has a matte black finish with a glossy black upper third around the camera assembly. The frame is metal and the front has an all-glass display, with no cutouts for the camera or fingerprint sensor.

Wireless charging is not supported on the 9T, but fast wired charging and a 120W charger are included. iQOO says the phone can be charged to 50% in 8 minutes and 100% in just 20 minutes.

Software

IQOO 9T launches with Android 12 and Funtouch OS 12 Global. Our review unit came with the August 1st Android security update, and it has received a few minor phone updates since its arrival.

The Funtouch OS 12 user interface offers a fairly classic Android experience; swiping over on the home screen brings up Google Explore, and swiping up on the home screen brings up the app launcher and widgets for you to choose from. Widgets created for the Funtouch OS user interface.

The other area where I see some customization effects is in the settings options available on the phone. Animations, extreme game modes, and shortcuts/accessibility have device-specific options like animations, 4D in-game vibrations, and various notifications.

We also see some device-specific apps for web browsing, photo albums, infrared remote apps, and theme options. There are some other recommended apps, but they are not installed yet, so it is a pretty clean smartphone.

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Key point

IQOO 9T is roughly equivalent to OnePlus 10T, in terms of specifications and price, the iQOO 9T is slightly wider and taller. The 9T could have had a slightly better camera and feel a bit more premium thanks to the metal frame.

Although I’m not connected to all available 5G networks yet, I did use the phone with a T-Mobile SIM with LTE coverage. The large capacity battery works well, easily lasting more than a day of heavy use. I don’t game much on my phone, but I uploaded and played some racing games to test the iQOO 9T’s performance. It’s great for smooth scrolling of courses without lag or the phone getting hot.

The IQOO 9T is a solid flagship phone with an upper mid-range price tag. I was amazed at the quality of the photos and was able to use this phone as my daily driver.

Alternatives to consider

It’s great to see phones with top specs available for hundreds of dollars less than flagship models from Samsung, Google, and Apple. Here are some other phones to consider in the $500 to $700 price range.